Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Catchup

I started school last week. So far, so good. We'll see how I feel in a few months.

I am attending UIC M-F 9AM-4PM. If you are in the Greektown/Little Italy areas around lunch, please give me a call, I could use a little excursion now and then.

I realized that I am a big violator of Comcast's TOS regarding data use. If they decide to punish me for exceeding their 250GB monthly allowance, I will probably give AT&T or RCN a call (since their policy is to disable internet for abusers). Seeding Free Content is apparently not something they want their 'home' users to be able to do.

I picked up basic LaTeX the other day while trying to type my homework for statistics (Couldn't figure out how to embed nice looking Sigma's into a document, figured now was as good a time as any to learn a necessary typesetting skill). I am certain there are countless style violations, my main concern was putting it all on paper efficiently.

I am learning R as I go. The catalog for the Stat course implies that SAS or SPSS would be used, but since there is no lab component, it's a free for all on software. If you have a lot of time on your hands, use a pen; if you like office, use excel; and if you are a guy like me, use R. It is good enough for my brother in law, Chris, so it can't be all wrong.

My second lab of CS was fruitless. Basically still learning to effectively type and transfer files. Copying code snippets isn't what I had expected at this point. I expect things to move a little faster in the future.

Econ is going well, until I realized that there are many people more mathematically illiterate than I. The instructor put a derivative on the board today, and a lengthy argument about how something could vary at a point came up. I bet the 17th century was full of some heated discussions about the meaning of the differential, just like this. Some people don't have an I believe button to block out the impossible notion of an infinitesimal change. I breath deeply and think they may be right. But if you allow for it, see how many problems you can answer!